Five years ago, Little Rock wrestling emerged as the "new kid on the block," the latest DI addition to college wrestling. The program aimed to make a splash early, but did not win a single Division I match its first season and posted a 1-8 overall record with the lone W coming against DIII foe University of the Ozarks.
The following season, the program did a little better, winning two matches. But the bigger headline from that second season came in March when then-senior Paul Bianchi made history and became the first national qualifier for the Little Rock Trojans after winning a Pac-12 title two weeks prior. Bianchi went 1-2 at the tournament but finished his career as a memorable trailblazer for his team.
Flash forward three years, and Little Rock is ranked No. 18 in the country with six athletes — including two more Bianchi brothers — ranked individually.
NWCA RANKINGS: These are the top 25 teams in the country
This is the story of how a program, one built around the values of family and perseverance, started from scratch and built itself into a Pac-12 powerhouse, one that is ready to make history in the last four weeks of the 2023-24 season.
Building a 'brotherhood' bond
The vision for Little Rock's future started with Neil Erisman.
A Big 12 champion at Oklahoma State, Erisman came to Little Rock from North Carolina where he served as the assistant coach for four seasons. This new job was unlikely any he had had before. He wasn't just inheriting a new program. He was building a program from the ground up.
One of the biggest challenges Erisman faced initially was finding older athletes to mentor his new guys. In his initial season, he filled his roster with 17 true freshmen, four community college or junior college transfers, a transfer from North Dakota State, a Minnesota transfer, a Cowley College transfer, an Ohio State transfer and two redshirt freshmen.
Two of those athletes were Bianchis. The older Bianchi, Paul, came to Little Rock from Fargo where he wrestled his first three years and qualified for the national tournament in 2018. The younger Bianchi, Joey, was a true freshman.
Erisman said he leaned on his more seasoned wrestlers like Paul to support the enormous group of young talent in the room. But that balance was still tough.
"[That first class] didn't have those older guys there every single day going into 'alright, I've been through it, you're gonna make it' or 'hey, you know, you're gonna have to turn up here, you're gonna have to develop this if you want to be successful,'" Erisman said. "It was a hard road to get to this point because we had a lot of struggles but watching them develop into those mature older guys that have developed our program as a whole has been really cool."
Joey Bianchi said his older brother Paul became a critical mentor for him, fulfilling exactly the role that Erisman hoped he would, but that didn't mean the brothers weren't competitive with one another. Erisman frequently paired Joey and Paul Bianchi together in the practice room and told Joey never to let his older brother take him down. They could be friends off the mat, but, on the mat, they were there to make each other better.
Now that Paul has graduated, Joey is taking on that older brother role. His younger brother, Matty, is the latest Bianchi in the lineup, and Matty, a redshirt sophomore, is grateful for the relationship that he has at Little Rock with his brother.
"I love having Joey here, obviously. He's been my main practice partner since I was like, you know, seven years old or something like that," Matty Bianchi said. "I can get a good workout every single time I go with him and actually push him even harder because I know he can't get rid of me because he's my brother. So I can say whatever I want to him. And, you know, if they rile him up, they'll rile him up."
The two now wrestle in back-to-back weights with Matty ranked No. 31 at 157 pounds and Joey ranked No. 24 at 165 pounds.
But it isn't just the Bianchi brothers that are giving Little Rock a 'family-centric' environment. The team also has two other sets of brothers: Bilal and Nasir Bailey and Jayden and Jaylen Carson.
The Carson brothers are twins who wrestle at 125 and 141 pounds respectively whereas in the Bailey family, Bilal is the older (and bigger) brother at 157 pounds with younger brother Nasir making his mark at 133 pounds.
"With the other two sets of brothers, I'd say they're kind of like cousins almost just because you can relate to them because they also have a brother on the team," Matty Bianchi said. "I think it kind of shows the other teammates that man, they're so close, because we are literally family, and they kind of want to hop in on that. So I think it creates more friendships and kind of creates a brotherhood amongst the entire team."
The challenge with such a family-centric team, Erisman said, is making sure each guy feels like he's getting the attention and support he needs, but, at Little Rock, the mantra is "take the time." Each athlete needs to be supported to make the team stronger, and Erisman has taken that philosophy to heart.
It's part of what has made this team great.
"You don't want to be left behind."
The other element that has helped Little Rock make big jumps this year is depth.
Take 165 pounds for example. Joey Bianchi, the team's starter for the last three seasons, nearly lost his spot to a teammate earlier this year. Now he's ranked Top 33 in the country.
He remembers the feeling of seeing a ranking number next to his name for the first time. It came right after the Southern Scuffle and inspired a sense of appreciation mixed with relief. It wasn't even really about the number for Bianchi — it was about living up to the new expectations of his program, a program that suddenly had five other guys in the rankings and was pushing for ranked Pac-12 wins as a team.
"I finally saw the ranking next my name and I was like, finally," Joey Bianchi said. "Seeing a ranking next to my name tells me that, you know, I'm meant to be here."
Matty felt similarly.
"After about, like, the first week and a half, I was put in the rankings and a lot of the guys would come up to me saying like, 'Oh, my God, Matty, you're in the rankings," Matty Bianchi said. "I thought, at first, I was like, 'man, that's awesome.' But then I also thought to myself, 'no, that's expected. That's what should have been.' I think it's really cool to have that number by my name, and it's really cool that it got other people to do it too. You don't want to be left behind."
Joey credited the younger athletes, specifically 133-pounder Nasir Bailey and 197-pounder Stephen Little for helping to elevate the program and make rankings part of the expected experience for Little Rock athletes.
Bailey is currently the highest-ranked Little Rock athlete at No. 6 with a 21-2 record while Little is ranked No. 9 with a 17-2 record. Senior Tyler Brennan is also ranked No. 23 at 174 pounds; junior Josiah Hill sits at No. 22 at heavyweight.
Little Rock has never qualified more than one wrestler at a time for NCAAs. This year the Trojans are projected, based on the rankings, to push six through to Kansas City.
Chasing hardware and history
Making nationals is no longer the goal though. Joey Bianchi wants to be an All-American.
"This year has changed so much compared to past years, that it's like, instead of placing Pac-12s, it's winning Pac-12, so then we can get a good seed at nationals to put us in a better spot to All-Americans," he said. "I think we have not only physically jumped levels here at this program, we've jumped levels in our mentality."
And the growth won't just stop there.
Matty Bianchi aspires for Little Rock, a team once underestimated and struggling to pick up a Division I win, to become a program with the brand of an Oklahoma State, his coach's alma mater. He and his brother emphasized that the success of this year's team, and the expected success for the program at NCAAs, should in no way be considered a fluke. This team has become a "warrior family," Matty said; that mentality will allow the program to flourish in the years and decades to come.
Little Rock broke into the top 25 for the first time in history earlier this season after a ranked win over Arizona State, and the Trojans have continued their winning ways, beating Oregon State, Cal Poly, CSU Bakersfield and SIUE. The team's lone Pac-12 loss this year came against Stanford on Jan. 28.
The clear message from the Bianchi brothers and Erisman is simple though: Don't doubt Little Rock.
This Trojan team is no longer the "new kid" or the "little brother" team on the scene anymore.
Little Rock is here to contend.
